The Spirit lasts-- but in what mode
by jomiddlemarch
Summary: Ross is laid low.


"Prudie says she's afeard you've got the miner's black. What does she mean, Ross?"

Demelza asked gently, but she made sure he could hear her. He was sitting on the settle with his face turned away from her, his dark curls unkempt and his clothes rumpled. He hadn't looked so when he'd come to visit her earlier in the day, nor the days before that she could recall, but the bedchamber was shadowy and he didn't tarry long. She had thought it was him when Prudie knocked and she'd been surprised by the small but present surge of pleasure it had given her to imagine he'd return, that he might say something more to her than the brief remarks he made in the mid-morning.

The older woman had been as polite as she knew to be, but she'd been worried enow she'd not hesitated to tell Demelza that she thought Master Ross was sufferin' fierce with miner's black and couldn't mistress try and talk with him, lure him out of it? She'd also said he'd barely taken food or drink for the past three days, just some weak ale, and he was spending the afternoons and evenings in the sitting room but wouldn't let her light anything but the hearth. Demelza had taken it in and known she would collect herself because he needed her to, even if he couldn't ask. Prudie had been quick to dismiss the notion of stays "just your good wrapper, the quality one, that'll do," and eager even to prepare the strengthening posset Demelza had requested. She'd heard the housekeeper murmuring as she left, "…set such store upon that child, did'ee, shame, sorry, sorry shame."

Demelza had grasped just how adrift Ross was when Jud came out from whatever dank alcove he'd been lurking in and muttered, "God bless ye, mistress, he's sinkin'" and saw how Garrick lay right beside Ross's feet, his head down, panting lightly, and hardly looked at her when she came in. The walk had tired her and she sat down heavily in the armchair closest to her husband.

"Demelza, you shouldn't be down," Ross replied, still looking out the window. There was nothing new to see there but she couldn't make out what was in his mind's eye.

"I guess I'll decide that. What did she mean, Prudie?"

"Miner's black…it's, sometimes the men, the miners, when they get caught in the mine and there's a cave-in or even sometimes, if they're unlucky enough and the lanterns all go out, they are blinded, even when they come out again, rescued. They say, they say it's all darkness, they can't make out the light," he explained and she heard already why Prudie had said it, all the lively light gone from his voice, even without seeing his eyes.

"My father, he could be troubled so, even without the calamity first…it could come upon him, these periods of… dark, he wouldn't talk, paced miles in this room and down at the shore. It was like he'd left us, but he'd return and he couldn't say much of it," he added.

"And that's what- that's what's happened to you, hasn't it?" Demelza said; it was a question but she said it as a statement, for she could see the answer already and wouldn't let him equivocate.

"Yes, no. I suppose? I cannot…I didn't feel anything at first and you were still so ill, but now…I understand those men, my father better. I know how terrible it is, the abyss, infinite and so dark. Hopeless," he said and it was more than she had expected to hear, the words and the silence in between them.

"Did nothing help? The men or your father?"

"Some came through it. Others did not. The minister would pray and the wise-woman would make a tonic if you asked. My mother spent hours reading to my father… I can't remember what, just her voice in this room and his tread," he replied.

"Won't you even look at me?" Perhaps, if she could make herself more apparent to him, there would be a beginning?

"I'm afraid, Demelza. Afraid to look and not see, afraid to see what I cannot bear," he said. She got up, took a breath, and made her way to him.

"I only understand a little, Ross. But even if you cannot see, it doesn't mean the sun has gone, or the sea or the stars. Our Julia," she paused to let the pain of it beat through her, the way she had borne her labor, "She has left us and she has not gone. She was ours and she still is. We may still love her, I do, and the pain of it…that we also have with us. God is still with us."

"Is He? I can't tell, I can hardly believe," he replied.

"Well, your belief is not required for His existence," she said, a little of her old tartness creeping in, and that was what made him turn to look at her and that was what brought a look of relief to his eyes.

"Demelza." It was a question, acknowledgement, recognition, it was the faintest glimmer of the morning star.

"I haven't the skill to read for so long, nor the breath back to sing and even my feet are not ready to walk the shore with you. But I'll sit by you and sleep by you, if you'll come back to our bed at night. And it's not only me, Verity has written I know, and you might read her letters and write her back, and Dwight, when he makes his rounds, would be glad to share a cup—you two could take this poor cur here for a ramble on the beach. They also care for you and perhaps that will help," she said, picking up the hand beside her, stroking it with her thumb.

"Do you want me to?"

"I'd rather you wanted to for yourself, but if you can't find that yet within you, then yes. I want it, that's what I want. And for you to drink the posset Prudie is bringing along. You can't do anything with only ale in your belly," she said and she'd said something right, or close to it, for he tightened his hold on her hand and ducked his head in the smallest nod.

"I can't say I'll like it, the posset, but I'll drink it. And I'd sit with you a while like this, unless you are too tired," he said. Julia had had his mouth but her own blue eyes, she thought; one day she'd be able to tell him that but not today.

"I expect I'll manage…we'll manage. We'll manage until we can do better than that," she replied firmly, trying to put the sunlight in her voice and Julia's laughter and the smell of gorse and broom crushed under foot.

He was looking now and seeing; he didn't smile but that wasn't what was wanted now. Only for him to know someone was waiting, someone was removing stone by stone the barrier at the mouth of the cave, that Ross Poldark could return to himself, master of Nampara, broken, mended, whole.


End file.
